Attempt at whimsy misfires

Tuesday

Oct 29, 2013 at 6:00 AMOct 29, 2013 at 8:44 AM

I have this friend. I'll call her Sue, because that happens to be her name.

That's how I started a column last week that dealt with the issue of regret, and the fact that I wish I had never written it is one of those ironies that would be funny if it wasn't borderline pathetic.

Today's column is a bit self-indulgent, and I ask that my readers tolerate this exercise if they're inclined, and as a lure I'll even share some not-so-secret secrets of my trade that have been known to cause, let's say, some social unpleasantness or hurt feelings.

Last Thursday my column offered a defense of regret and I cited an article in which the writer argued that the emotion is essential to a good life. I found the premise interesting for several reasons, not the least of which involved a looming deadline and a dearth of column material. In other words, I had no words. When you write a column three times a week, sometimes you run out of ideas and are forced to punt. As opposed to staff reporters, columnists can't report to their editor at the end of the day that their story fell through, or that their source never returned their call or the dog ate their homework. Unless I'm on vacation or pretending to be sick — I mean, home with the flu — I have a deadline to meet.

So on this particular Wednesday, things were quiet. The City Council had done nothing particularly asinine the day before. No millionaire developer was announcing his intention to give back to the community by building a casino, John Henry hadn't yet announced his clear intention to sell us, and the tea party hadn't threatened to shut down the government in, like, days.

So I was surfing the web and stumbled upon the essay. I thought it would make an acceptable if not award-winning piece, but I wanted to put a person in the column to humanize the idea. And I thought of Sue. As I would write in the column, "Sue is an eternal optimist — happy, upbeat, always looking on the bright side of things. Sue is never eager to dwell on the past or listen to whiny people — frequently me — bemoan their mistakes ... Sue drives me nuts. What's wrong with her?"

I wrote the column largely tongue-in cheek, or at least I thought I did, and I noted that Sue was hardly alone in her disdain for regret, which is dismissed in American culture as a weakness. And I wrote this sentence: "Author Carina Chocano argues that people such as my friend Sue — at least she was still my friend as of this morning — are actually opposed to human emotion and intellectual reason. People who always look on the bright side tend to lack insight, deny the lessons of the past and aren't nearly as smart as I am."

Now, it may say something about my insight that I was shocked when Sue was hurt by the column, believing I had publicly insulted her and called her stupid. I felt terrible, of course, because here's the thing about column-writing: When you offend people, the goal is to do it deliberately. To someone who deserves it. Not, for example, my fifth-grade nun, whose name I once used because I thought she had passed away when she hadn't. Sometimes, decisions made under the pressure of deadlines aren't always the best.

I'm good at apologies because I've had lots of practice, so I apologized profusely to Sue. I tried to explain my thinking at the time: Her traits are wonderful ones and universally envied, and the column was light-hearted. If anything, I was shooting for self-deprecation and trying to rationalize my tendency to mope.

No matter. I had hurt a good friend, so I include here a public apology to my private one, and I hope she understands that the last thing I consider her to be is stupid. I wish I could be more like her, as I've told her in the past. She's actually quite terrific.

This isn't the first time I've screwed up, and it sadly won't be the last. In all honesty, when I look back on this, I realize that, despite all my excuses, I have only one person to blame — the author of that stupid essay.